Our Trustees

Charlotte Moretto

OPAAL Chair

Charlotte is a Barrister specialising in the field of personal injury law. She is also a Director of Chaptercare Limited, which operates a residential care home in East Yorkshire. In the voluntary sector, Charlotte has five years’ experience as a governor in two different schools.

Charlotte has now been involved within the care sector for seven years, as a result of which she has knowledge of working within a statutory framework and some of the issues facing older people. As an employer, Charlotte also has practical experience of employment issues.

Charlotte has four children and lives in Cambridgeshire. She is a new trustee to OPAAL and is very much looking forward to contributing to the mission of the organisation.

Colette Isaaks

Treasurer

Colette is an experienced Independent Non-Executive Director (NED), with a successful track record of ensuring that customers have positive experiences when accessing services in a variety of industries, For Colette, it is extremely important that older people have both the means and opportunity to influence strategic and policy decisions on issues that affect them.

In a previous role Colette was a Minister-appointed NED, for the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) which has both a national profile and very active regional/local presence, with regional committees and advocates spread across England and Wales.

In 2013-2014 Colette joined Walford and North Shropshire College (WNSC) as a Performance and Learning Coach. In this role, she acted as an inspirational leader, not only to the students, but also to the other staff members responsible for student progression and aspiration. Colette worked closely with the local Council to enhance the profile of the college and facilitated a number of student led entrepreneurial initiatives to engage with the local community, including: running a market stall in Oswestry; and facilitating the students to use social media to advertise their services skills and abilities.

Colette also continues to work for The Lord Grantchester, helping him with his Parliamentary responsibilities and to run his personal estate, which has been invaluable in building up her network of contacts within Cheshire, Shropshire and the North West.

Kay Keane

Kay has been employed in the NHS for all her career, working at a national level for many years she is now Practice Business Manager at Alvanley Family Practice in Woodley, Stockport.

As a practice they are particularly interested in social prescribing and have gained national recognition for the work that they have done, lead by Kay, in this area. Kay received an honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of the Arts earlier this year (FRSA) in recognition of her work to bring about social change. As much of her work is to bring about changes to support patients as they are receiving care closer to home Kay feels it important to ensure that good advocacy services are available to everyone, particularly older people.

Outside of work Kay is an avid allotmenteer and traveller in her camper van.

Carol Gibbons

Carol currently works at Macmillan Cancer Support. In her time at Macmillan she has held a variety of posts, focusing on patient and carer engagement and involvement, peer support and self-management, and in these roles she has managed people, projects and budgets.

Carol is a registered and qualified social worker with experience in generic social work, child protection both in office hours and as part of out of hours team and as an Approved Social Worker under the Mental Health Act.

She has worked as an Inspection and Registration Officer inspecting and registering residential care in an outer London borough and acted as a lay assessor for the Quality Outcomes Framework in primary care.

Carol is currently an accredited assessor for Investing in Volunteers.

From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s she managed a range of community based social care, befriending, welfare rights and practical support services provided by a mixed team of paid staff and volunteers for people living with HIV/AIDS in London.

Before joining Macmillan, Carol was the Director of a charity which contract managed community care services for older and physically disabled adults and people with mental health problems and learning disabilities in an inner London borough.

Dave Bradshaw

Dave has been Project Co-ordinator with Sandwell Advocacy (based in the West Midlands) since 2002. He also has a keen interest in the promotion and development of informal Citizen Advocacy and is on the board of the National Coalition of Advocacy Schemes.

Dave has many years’ experience of delivering frontline community based advocacy projects and is passionate about meaningfully involving volunteers in its delivery.

Dr Jonathan Tobutt

Jonathan has extensive experience gained in education and the arts and also the Criminal Justice System combined with a self-employed career as a musician.

Jonathan has worked on a variety of interdisciplinary committees (performance-related administrative and financial) in, educational and medical forums; LGBT assemblies; and probationary welfare and basic education working groups for high category prisoners on release.

Jonathan has been a carer since 2005 when his partner was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and has lived with a colostomy from 2010 and palliative status was confirmed in 2011.

Born in London in 1955 and trained as a classical musician at the Royal Academy of Music, Jonathan played in many leading orchestras and has performed in recitals and concertos throughout the United Kingdom.

Jonathan retired from playing professionally in 1982 to pursue a career in education, including teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills for the Criminal Justice System. Jonathan returned to higher education in 2009 for postgraduate study at Leeds University.

Eileen Rudden

Eileen continues to work as an advocate for older people living with dementia and has been with Age UK for the last 18 years. During this time she has also been a volunteer with Citizens Advice.

Previously her career was in Special Educational Needs working as a senior teacher in a large London Comprehensive.

Currently Eileen is involved in facilitating and initiating projects to encourage creative activities for older people in hospital discharge wards and care homes.